The Never Ending Stairway
by Katsu
Summary: They never stopped to think what the sudden influx of emotion would do to the Clerics, or consider the possibility that some might not adapt. 6


**The Never Ending Stairway**

"Your homework is entirely unacceptable, Mr. Carlo. Detention for the next week." she says, shoving her glasses further up her nose with one gnarled finger. Blood patters onto the floor like a gentle rain and he wonders if he should correct her, because his last name isn't Carlo and neither is his first. But she's already assigned him eight detentions, and he doesn't really want to deal with another one, because it might start to affect his grades. 

The concrete is cold under his feet as he begins to climb the stairs. 

And it doesn't make sense, because why should he worry about his grades? He's not in school any more, and hasn't been for years. He's fairly certain of that, though everything is so mixed up that he keeps his mind open to the possibility that he could be wrong on that as well. 

She keeps pace with him, which is impressive because if he remembers correctly, she had to use a walker, which she doesn't have with her. "Are you listening to me?" she asks. 

"Yes ma'am. I'm listening. I just have to be somewhere." 

"Young man, you are toeing the line of disciplinary action!" 

He climbs, leaning heavily on the railing. It flakes under his hand, coating his palms with rust that looks like week old blood. Not that he really knows what week old blood looks like, he's more acquainted with its qualities when fresh; the coppery scent, the slightly viscous nature, the way it clumps together like dark red cottage cheese as it starts to dry. Still, he can imagine. 

She's still talking about his grades, so he finally pauses on a landing and gasping for breath, turns to glare at her. "You're not giving me detention, you stupid BITCH, you're dead!" 

She doesn't even listen, just keeps talking with blood running down one side of her face and her brain oozing pinkly out around her ear. 

With a burst of energy he didn't know he had, he runs up to the next landing, leaving her behind. Bethany is waiting for him there, but that's fine because she's a lot more pleasant. He catches a glimpse of himself in the shattered shards of a mirror. He's wearing a light blue shirt that's stained and wrinkled, and khaki pants. Where the hell is his uniform? The black coat he keeps perfectly pressed, each crease like a knife edge, is missing. The sleeves on the shirt are short, so it's obvious he doesn't have his guns either. Further ruminations on fashion are cut off as the mirror melts, running down the wall like mercury and ending up in a pool on the floor. 

Bethany skips over to it, her bright yellow and red polka-dotted sundress blowing this way and that with the wild winds coming in the shattered windows. She pauses to poke at the puddle with her fingers, and it turns red and viscous. She shrugs and comes back to his side. 

"It's the nature by which we breathe." she says confidently. 

And suddenly it all comes crashing down around him, because he realizes that the polka dots are actually blood, and the front of her thin chest is missing. 

"I'm sorry, darling, I'm sorry," he sobs, leaning against the wall for a moment. His legs are twitching and shaking, and snot is starting to dot the front of his shirt, because he's not bothering to wipe his nose. 

"Are you going to get mommy next?" 

Bile tries to well up in his throat, but he swallows it with determination. Clerics don't throw up. Ever. They don't get upset like that, so what the fuck is his problem? "I already did, darling." 

"And Jonathan?" 

"Right after your mommy." 

"Okay!" She skips up a few steps, and he follows her, doggedly. There's something at the top of these stairs, he's certain, some answer that's important. But the steps spiral up into infinity, and he's not certain if he actually has the strength to make it that far. 

"You know I had to, right? It was your mommy's fault, she made you into an offender." 

Bethany pauses for a moment and wrinkles her nose into a smile. "Of course it's okay. I'm not mad at you." 

"Well...good." Step, step, step, and glass springs up from the ground, shredding the bottoms of his feet. He leaves bloody prints to mark his progress now. 

"Nice dress," he says, as he continues to climb. She has a name, he's certain of it, but he can't remember. All he knows is the phrase _Apartment 1010, building 73, possession of EC-10 material, failure to dose_ and it keeps repeating over and over in his head. He's crying again, and he doesn't understand why because he shouldn't be crying at all. 

The momentary confusion distracts him, and he trips, sprawling across the stone steps. One of his pockets rips open and glass vials go rolling down the stairs, chiming like little bells before they shatter into glittering fairy dust. He clutches at his head, waiting for the pain to come smashing down like a hammer, his breath coming in wheezing gasps. 

When his head doesn't crack open, he drags back up to his feet, and sneezes. Blood begins to drip from his nose as he climbs, one drop for each step. It's an unholy mess, and he's glad that he's not on the cleanup team any more. Bethany waits for him to catch up before skipping off again, pulling handfuls of empty 9mm shells from the pockets of a light blue apron she's now wearing and casting them over the edge of the railing like metal tears. 

"Hey man, hear the new one by Bach? It's amazing." Mark is standing on the next landing, his left arm in shreds and a long sling of greyish pink intestine hanging from his stomach, and he pats Bethany on the head as she goes by. She's singing a nursery rhyme now: 

"Jack Sprat could eat no fat  
And his wife could eat no lean  
And so betwixt them both - " 

It ends right there and she keeps singing it in that little lilting voice, over and over and over and OVER. He wishes she'd finish the line, since he's always wanted to know what on earth the conclusion is, ever since he first heard her sing it eleven years ago. But that was the point that he'd looked down the barrel of his gun, straight into her heart, and shot her, so maybe she's teasing him by keeping it secret. 

People line the stairwell more thickly now, reaching out and patting him on the back as he passes, saying cheerful words of encouragement. The blood flows down the steps in rivers, and his shirt is totally beyond salvage, liberally painted with threads of red mucus that still drip from his nose. And he's crying again, even though he keeps telling himself to stop, because it's dangerous and evil and stupid. But it weighs down his shoulders until he thinks he will break in half, and that seems to be the only way to relieve the pressure. He can't handle this, he was never supposed to, and where are his drugs. Where are his FUCKING DRUGS? 

He reaches another landing and pauses for breath, feeling through his pockets. The vials are gone, the injectors, everything has been dropped. He remembers them taking the medi-gun away, a million and seven years ago, and for some reason he let them. And now nothing can deaden the pain, it's constant, and he can't find the right drug, though sometimes the other ones help dull the screaming that he drowns in. But only sometimes. 

"You're almost there, keep going!" Bethany says. 

"I know, darling. Where am I going, anyway?" 

"To see the Cheshire Cat, because he's going to tell you how to find the Vorpal Sword." Bethany says, as if it's the most logical thing in the world. 

"Well, of course. Why do I want the sword again?" 

"Kill the monsters, silly, the ones that are trying to hurt me and Jonathan and mommy. The cock-sucking motherfuckers took your guns away, so you have to kill them some other way." 

He nods and begins walking up the next flight of stairs, his legs screaming messages of pain and fatigue. "Don't call people cock suckers, it's not polite. And not ladylike either. It was Cleric Preston, and he was a very good Cleric, so you need to respect that and address him with his proper title." 

"But it's your fault, you realize. You let them take it all away." she continues, ignoring him. 

He stops, covering eyes that burn with his hands. "I know." 

"Take, take, take. That's what you always do." 

"I know." 

"But that's okay, because you were right. We were such bad people." she says sweetly, forgiveness and light in a cute sundress. "And now you have to do it, because we can't! We believe in you!" 

He should be smiling at her words, at least he thinks so, because she's being nice, but instead the tears are coming thick and fast again. "I left your mommy face down in the kitchen." he says. 

"I know, Jonathan saw and told me." 

Step, step, step. Sob. "She was making a cake with little pink roses on it. I think we burned it." 

"She wasn't a very good cook anyway." 

"Jonathan's head exploded like confetti." he continues. He can see the final landing up ahead, suddenly, so close he can nearly reach it. 

"You messed up his crayons. He was mad about that." 

"Well, he shouldn't have been fucking FEELING anything SHOULD HE?" he yells suddenly, a spasm of rage freezing him for a moment. Someone whose name he doesn't remember comes up behind him and shoves him up the next step, quoting Shakespeare. 

"You don't have to yell." 

"I'm sorry, darling. I don't know what's wrong with me these days." 

Bethany nods sagely. "I hope you feel better soon. Have chicken soup. That's what mommy always makes for me." 

There's a window in front of him now, and he sticks his head out, marveling at the fields of brightly colored grass, the paper flowers and trees made of bones. His hands tremble on the stone frame. "This is it, right? I don't want to go further. I'm too weak." 

Bethany offers him a hand, helps him climb into the window. "Yep!" 

He smiles for the first time, wiping at his nose and eyes ineffectually with his hands. "I'll be back soon, darling. Just keep yourself safe until I get back and make sure they can't hurt you once and for all." 

"Good luck, daddy!" she says, cheerfully. Always the brightest, smartest little girl. She would have made a grand Cleric, just like her father, he knows. His heart swells with pride as he steps through the portal into the field. 

...except the ground vanishes from beneath his feet and he's falling, falling, falling, with the deacde old sound of Bethany's terrified scream of "DADDY!" still echoing in his ears. 


End file.
